StarCraft (SC) is a real-time strategy (RTS) computer game introduced by Blizzard Entertainment in 1998. It is similar to Blizzard's previous hit Warcraft II, except that it has a space opera setting as opposed to a high fantasy setting. StarCraft was the best selling computer and video game of 1998.[1] An estimated 9.5 million copies were sold (4.5 million copies in South Korea) by 2004.[2] In 2009, the Guiness Book of World Records recognized StarCraft as the best-selling RTS game at 9.5 million copies sold.[3] StarCraft is praised for being a benchmark of RTS for its depth, intensity, and balanced races.

The main storyline of the game revolves around a war between three galactic species: the protoss (a race of humanoid religious warriors), the zerg (vile insect-like aliens who share a hive mind) and the terrans (initially, descendants of human prisoners from Earth). The storyline was initially introduced by the manual.

It was initially released for Windows, and later for Macintosh and Nintendo 64.

Contents

Overview

StarCraft was the best selling computer game in 1998[4] and won the Origins Award for Best Strategy Computer Game of 1998.[5] In November of the same year, Blizzard released an expansion pack called StarCraft: Brood War.

StarCraft makes significant improvements over Warcraft II. WC II, while advanced for its time, featured what many gamers believed to be a weakness in that, apart from a few minor (but significant for balance, especially at higher skill levels) differences in available spells and the cost of upgrades, the game's two races were exactly the same mechanically, with only graphical differences. StarCraft improved upon this by adopting the technique introduced by Strategic Simulations' game War Wind of having sides with obvious asymmetries. The asymmetry was inspired, in part, by Magic: The Gathering.[6] Though the game's three races (Protoss, Terrans, and Zerg) were slightly imbalanced when the game was first released, the expansion pack and fifteen patches (of which four significantly affected the game play mechanics) have balanced the three races.

The StarCraft: Brood War expansion provides several new units for each race (which dramatically modified the game play) and a new campaign for each race, continuing the story begun in StarCraft (see StarCraft storyline). Most people who still play use this expansion and agree that it changed the game significantly for the better, although some still prefer the original game.

The game also includes multiplayer gaming on Blizzard's own Internet gaming service Battle.net. One can play against opponents free of any charge beyond the original purchase of the game and local Internet access fees. Many fans enjoy playing in groups against the computer in skirmish games. While the AI is considered to be weak compared to a good player, decent early game performance can make it an enjoyable opponent for more casual players. Fans are also able to create unfair maps that are advantageous to the computer and can be extremely hard to beat. A few years after the release of the game, Blizzard also released several free maps of a higher difficulty. Over time, the patches have also improved the AI.

StarCraft has achieved a cult-like status in the computer gaming world. Due to the complexity and depth of the strategic possibilities, StarCraft, especially in its online multiplayer form, remains very popular, even years after its original release. The game's popularity in South Korea has been unexpectedly high, with nationally recognized tournaments, and intense training groups sprouting up across the country.[7] There are even a couple of cable-access channels that often televise tournaments live with the top players competing against each other, cheered on by enthusiastic spectators and fans. The top StarCraft players enjoy mild celebrity status.

Blizzard was working on a third person shooter, StarCraft: Ghost, which has been "indefinitely postponed".[8]

Fans impatiently awaited the release of StarCraft II, which was announced on May 19th, 2007 at the World Wide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea and released on July 27, 2010.

Game Play

Main article: Gameplay of StarCraft (includes information on famous players and a more detailed description of the game)

StarCraft improved upon its predecessor Warcraft II, which featured two very similar playable factions, by introducing asymmetry between the units and technologies available to its three races (Protoss, Terran, and Zerg). This asymmetry was similar to that pioneered in the lesser-known 1996 SSI release War Wind. The unit types available to each race define its racial identity. The Protoss can field powerful and expensive warriors and machinery, while the Zerg count on sheer numbers and speed to overwhelm their opponents. The Terrans are the versatile and flexible alternative to both races, with an emphasis on specialization and combined arms. In many ways, the Terran can be considered the "in-between" race in that they tend to benefit from more moderate conditions, whereas the other two races tend to prefer one extreme or the other. This can make it difficult to create maps that are fair for all races.

Storyline

The plot of the original StarCraft game revolves around the arrival of the zerg in the Koprulu sector and their later invasion of the protoss home world Aiur. After they have destroyed the Confederate colony on Chau Sara, the zerg are used by the rebel organization Sons of Korhal, which lures them to a number Confederate worlds using psi-emitters to further their own goals. After the Confederacy's fall, the Sons of Korhal's leader, Arcturus Mengsk, establishes the Terran Dominion, crowning himself emperor. The Zerg Swarm is, however, closely followed by a protoss fleet which burns down all worlds the zerg infest. The leader of the Protoss task force, High TemplarTassadar, later discovers that he can disrupt the Zerg Overmind's control over the Swarm by eliminating his cerebrate servants with the help of the Dark Templar. The involvement of the fallen Dark Templar will prove to be fateful; indeed, while slaying the Cerebrate Zasz, the Dark Templar Zeratul briefly comes in psychic contact with the zerg Overmind, who is then informed of Aiur's location and directs his Swarm towards the protoss world. The protoss high authority, the Conclave, is defeated by the Swarm, along with a large proportion of all protoss. In a desperate attempt to put an end to the zerg's destruction, Tassadar, Zeratul, and the remaining protoss unite their strengths with human Jim Raynor and attack the Overmind itself. They succeed in destroying it because Tassadar sacrifices himself to destroy it using Dark Templar energy.

StarCraft 64

StarCraft 64 is a "port" of the game of StarCraft to the Nintendo 64, released a year and a half after StarCraft: Brood War.

StarCraft culture

Popularity

Even as of 2005, StarCraft is still one of the most popular online games in the world. The game itself has its own culture, similar to Slashdot's and Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) communities.

Also of note is the infamous Operation CWAL (Can't Wait Any Longer). Operation CWAL formed in 1997, as a writers group, in the StarCraft Suggestions Forum in an attempt to "liberate" a final copy of StarCraft, which appeared obviously completed despite numerous delays on the part of Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment has gone as far as to give special thanks to this group in the manual for StarCraft, as well as including their name as a cheat code in the game (typing "operation cwal" during a single player game will dramatically decrease the time required to build units). While not very active today, Operation CWAL remains as one of Blizzard Entertainment's older and more loyal fan groups.

In the early 2000s, the game became extremely popular among South Korean online gamers, to the point of being exaggeratedly referred to as the national sport of South Korea by avid gamers, and the majority of StarCraft players now come from that country. The origin of this unusually high level of popularity is likely a combination of StarCraft's suitability for competitive multiplayer and the fact that it was released during the beginning of the boom in popularity of "PC baangs" in Seoul, resulting in a perfect opportunity for the game to catch on.

Professional Competition

In South Korea, StarCraft professional gamers, known by their pseudonyms such as Lim_Yo-Hwan aka SlayerS_`BoxeR`, Iloveoov, [Oops]Reach, [ReD]NaDa, [NC]...YellOw, and Nal_rA are celebrities: their games are broadcast over the television channels MBC Game and Ongamenet. A selected few have made substantial monetary gains through this. For example, one highly successful player, "[Red]Nada", signed a 3 year, $500,000 contract in 2004. Another example is "SlayerS_`BoxeR" who can, if all goes well, make $780,000 in the next 3 years, making him the highest paid StarCraft player ever. Some players can earn a decent to good living from TV-contracts and sponsoring and tournament prizes. However, the lower-echelon pro players tend to subsist on relatively small wages. Many pro gamers playing StarCraft use every minute of their spare time to play, in order to maintain preparation for the highly competitive leagues. Superior StarCraft and Warcraft III players are often referred to as "gosu". Less than average skilled players are often called hasu. Professional gaming in South Korea is an example of how e-sports can attain a social status similar to physical sports.

Replays, RWAs, VODs and Battle Reports

StarCraft enables the player to record a game and save it as a replay, which can then be viewed with any other copy of StarCraft, displaying the entire course of the game. As of 2005, there are many websites that host replays of players with different skill levels, though pro-level replays are relatively rarely released, for reasons of team secrecy and pro-league policy.

The RWAtools are a set of freeware tools, that create valid replay files, additionally containing an Ogg audio stream. They allow gamers to comment their own games while they play them and comment replays of other players. During replay the commentary is kept in sync with the game. This can be particularly interesting for people new to the game, who can learn from more experienced players pointing out things about a replay they would not have seen on their own, or simply for entertainment.

BWChart is a program used to analyze a player's actions in order to teach the viewer how a given player plays.

Lasgo's Observer Pack contains, beside other things, a tool that allows you to see the results of the recorded player's actions as if you played yourself (except the mouse pointer and the selection boxes).

VODs (from "Video On Demand") are videos that show the screen of a commentator (or sometimes player) during a (usually) pro-level game. They are (legally or not) available from a variety of websites, and are ripped from Korean television or Internet streams. They usually come in the ASF video file format for Windows Media Player, which plays them with seeking disabled, or in the Windows Media Video format. Because they are compressed with an MPEG-4 codec and the file size needs to be small, there is a significant quality loss in comparison to watching a replay. VODs are usually accompanied by enthusiastic announcing from the Korean commentators, and the occasional crowd shot.

StarCraft Campaign Editor and Custom Scenarios

The game comes with a campaign/map editor (practically a "Game Creation System" in itself) called StarEdit. StarEdit has many features, including a trigger system that allows one to make radical changes to the way that map works, readily giving gamers the ability to create custom map scenarios (also called MOD's). Hundreds of custom scenarios are created everyday, giving the game a refreshing variety. The StarCraft map-making community has also constructed additional editors or functionalities that grant the user even more power to modify the game.

Scenarios are created with entirely different sets of rules, objectives, and units. More popular user created scenarios include Evolves, Golem Madness, Turret Defense, Sunken Defense, Nightmare RPG, and the ubiquitous Tower Defense.

There is another type of map circulating in the online communities: StarCraft Diplomacy. There have been multiple versions of this game produced. The version was inspired by the board game Diplomacy.

Maps set in the story lines of popular television shows are also widely used. Android Menace is a particularly developed example, taking place in a large portion of the Dragon Ball Z story line. Maps with infinite minerals are also very popular, examples including "Fastest Map Ever" and "0Clutter." Many real-world events, including the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II and the American Civil War, have also been used as a base for StarCraft maps. There have been recent StarCraft maps depicting single or multiple scenes from books and movies, such as Troy and The Lord of the Rings. These maps include The Battle for Pelennor Fields and The Battle for Helm's Deep. In addition, a large amount of StarCraft players are also engaged in large, multi-player "Lord of the Rings"-type based maps, with each player controlling and developing a whole nation, complete with heroes and units. Instead of the building their forces from the ground up, players are given control of pre-built cities and armies. Units are periodically created at a special point, called the "spawn point". The purpose of these maps is usually to destroy a certain building that, when destroyed, disables an enemy's ability to spawn units. These maps range from the traditional Lord of the Rings v. Last Alliance (LA) to newer maps such as The Rings of Power (TRoP) and After Lord of the Rings (After-LotR). Older maps include Lord of the Rings version GOLD, which many accept as the origination of the "castle building" idea, and Middle Earth version Pre Lord of the Rings, which introduced the concept of hero units that were dauntingly stronger than the units in a standard army, shifting the focus of the game from large-scale battles to single unit strategy. This includes the strategy of operations, or "opping", which involves using one hero unit to achieve a goal, such as the destruction of an opponents spawn(s) or heroes

The popularity of custom maps is not limited, however, to only online gaming. Because StarEdit allows the mapmaker to "link together" several maps, single player "campaigns" (which are long scenarios played out over several maps, hence the name "campaign") have become prominent in the community. Popularized by the revolutionary Antioch Chronicles, many campaigns even come with "MODs" that feature new "heroes" (i.e. the mapmakers create new art files to be imported in to StarCraft, thus creating completely new units and characters - something StarEdit alone could never do). Popular player-made campaigns include Campaign Creations' Legacy of the Confederation, Life of a Marine, The Antioch Chronicles, and StarCraft.org's official campaigns: The Shifters and Fields of Ash.

In addition, some other map editors exist. These include the "StarCraft X-tra Editor," and have other features not in StarEdit. One of the possibilities included in some editors include "stacking" buildings and minerals, placing many one on top of the other. The ability to change player colors has been left to some of the more advanced editors, including "SCMDraft" and "StarForge," which were introduced after editors such as "GUEdit" and SCMToolkit" were becoming obsolete after barriers were broken and newer limits set. Most serious map creators now prefer "SCMDraft2," "StarForge," "PROEdit," and "uBeR@TiOn," because they give the user in-depth capabilities, such as the ability to use hidden AI scripts, protect maps from common theft, running sizeless sounds directly from the StarCraft disc, changing the color of text, compressing their map, and in more advanced areas, place raw sprites, sprite-units, extended players, disabled units, etcetera. Most of these editors (excluding "StarCraft X-tra Editor") are designed from scratch, eliminating most of the limits of the original StarEdit, the "StarCraft Campaign Editor." Many of these 3rd party programs have revolutionized StarCraft map making and new discoveries as to what different sprites or unit numbers do to the game, or as the most effective way to cloak certain units are discovered virtually every day. Many websites including StarCraft.org, Staredit Network, and StarCraft Index have been built around the capabilities of these impressive StarEdits.

Development

Conception

The concept for StarCraft emerged after the completion of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. While it was expected that Warcraft III would be the next logical step, Blizzard's art team wanted to work on something different. Designers still wanted to make another RTS, but it was decided that this time, it would be in a sci-fi setting.[13]Chris Metzen has voiced the opinion that the game was a reaction to the Warcraft series, and as such, from the outset, was intended to be more gritty and realistic.[14]

Numerous ideas were thrown around,[15] including the possibility of working with LucasArts to make a Star Wars-themed RTS.[13] Over time though, it was developed into its own setting.[15]

Walkers from Shattered Nations that would form the basis of goliaths

Prior to/during the development of StarCraft, Blizzard was working on at least two other sci-fi strategy games. One of these was Shattered Nations, a post-apocalyptic game where factions had to scavenge technology. The game was canceled in favor of StarCraft, but there is evidence that some aspects of Shattered Nations made it into its successor—the goliath design for instance bears great resemblance to a mech that was in Shattered Nations, and was relabeled as such by gaming magazine PC Champ.[16] Unlike StarCraft, Shattered Nations was a turn-based isometric game.[17]

It was originally anticipated that the game would be shipped in December 1996, with the thought of the game being a one year development cycle, but it was finally finished in March 1998.[15]

Storyline

The old "space vampire" concept

The initial storyline of StarCraft was in a sense, a science fiction spin-off of its counterpart franchise, Warcraft. More of an action shooter, it featured clans of 'space vampires' in a sci-fi setting. As design on StarCraft shifted towards an RTS game, it was decided to simplify things into recognizable traits; spidery aliens and psychic brain aliens would be easily recognizable to an audience.[19]Orcs were present during development, with the idea of copying the set-up of the first Warcraft game, Orcs and Humans. This idea was later abandoned.[15]

The terrans, protoss, and zerg made it to the final product, but they differed from early conceptions. In early concepts for the game (which originally took place in the 28th century), the terrans had ruled the stars for 600 years, but now possessed just a fragment of their early territory. The zerg (or "zurg" as they were originally known) were a bio-mechanical race rather than a purely organic one.[20] The protoss were openly hostile to the terrans and in the game's original backstory, carried out a massacre of terrans on one of the planets of Tau Ceti.[21]

Initially, the storyline was broad, the key events such as the fall of the Terran Confederacy and the invasion of Aiur not being implemented until work began on the single player campaign.[19] Cinematics were created before the fleshing out of the story, designed so that they could easily fit in—the intro cinematic is an example of this, designed to sell terrans as "rednecks."[15]

Certain elements of the canceled Blizzard game Bloodlines were ported into StarCraft,[22] though others (such as its space vampire concept) were cut.[19]

Gameplay

During the development process, there were great efforts to steer the game away from being simply "Warcraft in Space," and eventually the entire game engine had to be rewritten to allow the developers to achieve the desired result. Unlike Warcraft, where both the Alliance and Horde played identically bar spells, it was intended that StarCraft possess a rock/paper/scissors style of balance, partially inspired by Magic: The Gathering.[13]

Reception

StarCraft sold well, which Blizzard was prepared for. What wasn't expected was the reception in South Korea. It was the first Blizzard game to begin pushing the company in a global direction.[23]